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Liberty Engine Ocean System

The open-world ocean module of PlatinumGames' in-house engine — FFT seas, shoreline waves, whitecaps and water interaction, shipped in Ninja Gaiden 4 and more.

Role · Graphics developer · I.Meisters Inc. (Tokyo) 2024 Commercial engine / graphics Stack · C++ / HLSL / DirectX 12 / Compute Shader
Liberty Engine Ocean System

Liberty Engine is PlatinumGames’ in-house game engine, and the ocean module is one of the pillars of its open-world capability: FFT-based sea simulation, shoreline waves, whitecaps and foam, buoyancy and water-surface interaction — a highly customizable ocean system used extensively in Ninja Gaiden 4 and an unannounced AAA title. I worked deeply on this module during my time in Tokyo.

The ocean system in motion (YouTube)
My Part

What I built

Graphics development on DirectX 12 with compute shaders.

Crest spray & GPU particles

Wave-crest spray effects with GPU particle generation and management, plus splash effects when objects interact with the water surface.

Shoreline waves

Shoreline waves generated from terrain SDF, world AO and custom textures, along with whitecap generation for static waves.

Hazardous waters display

Weather-table-driven specialization of specific sea regions, giving gameplay a visual language for "danger here."

Gradient Editor plugin

An engine editor plugin built to MVVM conventions, letting artists tune ocean colors as directly as a Photoshop gradient panel.

Next project
Ninja Gaiden 4 →